The present invention is with respect to a unit for parallelizing a chain of overlapping sheet-like products, such as signature (that is to say causing their leading edges to be parallel), coming from a fan wheel and running on a delivery belt under the fan wheel.
A known system on these lines makes use of a number of parallel gripper chains running into spaces between different axial parts of the fan wheel, the grippers on the chains taking up the signatures in the spaces of the fan wheel at the leading edge of each such signature. The gripper chains are run at a speed which is less than the effective peripheral speed of the fan wheel so that the signatures gripped by the grippers are lifted out of the spaces in the fan wheel and put onto the delivery belt thereunder. Although with an apparatus on these lines it is possible to get an even spacing between the signatures which are overlapped on top of each other on the delivery belt, the known apparatus is not only heavy on upkeep, but is furthermore very likely to get out of order because the grippers and the chains used therefor are very easily damaged. Moreover, the gripper chains running between the two parts or disks of the fan wheel make it necessary for such disks to be spaced at some distance from each other, an undesired effect in this respect being that the signatures, taken up in the spaces in the fan wheel, are without any support in the openings kept free for the gripper chains, for this reason, may be whipped outwards by centrifugal forces so that it is not only harder to make certain that the signatures are gripped by the grippers on the chains, but furthermore the signatures may not be regularly placed. In short, the known apparatus is not simple and trouble-free enough.